No One Likes a Prophet: Isaiah Redux
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer
Yom Kippur 5781
This is an interpretive reading/mashup of Isaiah 57:14-58:12, infused with/inspired by midrashic readings and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Prophets.
No one likes a prophet.
They’re overblown. Sing an octave too high. Decibel too loud.
They exaggerate. And Where are their statistics?
Such flowery, poetic language. Just say what you want to say!
But when they do--oy. Doom and gloom. Nothing clears the room faster. It’s embarrassing to be a prophet.
Did you apply for this thankless job? Better you should be a new age rabbi or yoga teacher. Soothe. Preach peace and blessings, bootstraps, self-sufficiency. More carrot and less stick. Everywhere you go you send people into a panic: plague, destruction, demise. How is that supposed to inspire anyone to make teshuva?
Even the chanting of the Prophets--it gets under the skin. It’s not pleasant or jaunty. Sounds haunted.
99% of the time, we tune out the prophet.
We’re just trying to keep in the yellow-moderate zone of sanity.
We rationalize, we self-soothe, we deny what’s in front of us...we spend years cultivating reason and fortifying against pain. Better to ignore the prophet.
וְאָמַ֥ר סֹֽלּוּ־סֹ֖לּוּ פַּנּוּ־דָ֑רֶךְ הָרִ֥ימוּ מִכְשׁ֖וֹל מִדֶּ֥רֶךְ עַמִּֽי׃ (ס)
Isaiah 57:14: [The Lord] says: Build up, build up a highway! Clear a road! Remove all obstacles From the road of My people!
99% of the time, we tune out the prophet. But sometimes. Sometimes, when the ground beneath us no longer holds, when we’re afraid, when the sky goes dark at noon, when a great tzadeket dies, when the immediate future paralyzes with fear. Then. then we open our ears and listen. (Isaiah, did you just say something?)
וְאָמַ֥ר סֹֽלּוּ־סֹ֖לּוּ פַּנּוּ־דָ֑רֶךְ הָרִ֥ימוּ מִכְשׁ֖וֹל מִדֶּ֥רֶךְ עַמִּֽי׃ (ס)
Isaiah 57:14: [The Lord] says: Build up, build up a highway! Clear a road! Remove all obstacles From the road of My people!
[The Lord] says: Build up, build up a road! Clear a path! Remove all obstacles From the path of My people! What are these michsholim/stumbling blocks?. Destructive impulses: yetzer hara, greed, arrogance, willful blindness, let’s add to the list: race hatred, lying, crony-ism, apathy, paralysis. Isaiah calls: Roll up your sleeves, they are heavy, these obstacles, we need everyone to lift. . And begin to pave a Derekh. A way out. A way through. A way forward. This is how Isaiah begins today. It is so much harder than it sounds.
כִּי֩ כֹ֨ה אָמַ֜ר רָ֣ם וְנִשָּׂ֗א שֹׁכֵ֥ן עַד֙ וְקָד֣וֹשׁ שְׁמ֔וֹ מָר֥וֹם וְקָד֖וֹשׁ אֶשְׁכּ֑וֹן...
For thus says God on High: I am your שוכן עד, your transcendent neighbor, מרום--high and holy. As transcendent and high as I be, that’s how imminent and low to the ground I sit. Amongst the broken of spirit, the miserable, and the forsaken. I join them/you where they are and lift their spirit.
Compassion is my name. Right there in the 13--my attributes. The ones you invoke today for forgiveness, the ones that you repeat over and over so you might internalize them, inhabit them.
And yes, God will flare with righteous indignation. With holy rage: Nietsche wrote: “The Jews have experienced wrath differently and pronounced it holy.” Anger, where God and prophets are concerned, cannot be separated from compassion. Please God, connect us to Your compassion and rage right now.
קְרָ֤א בְגָרוֹן֙ אַל־תַּחְשֹׂ֔ךְ כַּשּׁוֹפָ֖ר הָרֵ֣ם קוֹלֶ֑ךָ
Cry with full throat, without restraint; Raise your voice like a ram’s horn! In defiance, in prayer. Cry out and call out; don’t be silenced. Isaiah says, literally--don’t ‘darken’ your call. Your voice trains a light in the dark corners. Refuses to normalize, to retreat into shadow.
Friends, Isaiah’s message to us today is no generic rebuke.
Today we stand before the open ark, the open gates, and before God, denying our body of corporeal sustenance. Fasting from vital nutrients, and from life-giving water, and physical love, touch, which we desperately need during this time of physical distance, and...Isaiah says: Hold up. Pause. Step outside the frame and take a look at yourselves. What are you doing and why? As you beat your breast and mouth the words of confession, is it puncturing your heart? Do you hear the words you speak as your own? As you strike yourself here, does your hand to heart contact spur movement or does the repetition numbingly re=etch apathy there?
Cuz in the middle of the day where bodily affliction is the thing, we just read about it in the Torah reading. Isaiah asks: What good is any of this fasting, if it’s just about our bodies, our afflictions. if it doesn’t catalyze our actions, if we’re going through the motions. It’s not going to cut it. Not this year.
הֲכָזֶ֗ה יִֽהְיֶה֙ צ֣וֹם אֶבְחָרֵ֔הוּ י֛וֹם עַנּ֥וֹת אָדָ֖ם נַפְשׁ֑וֹ הֲלָכֹ֨ף כְּאַגְמֹ֜ן רֹאשׁ֗וֹ וְשַׂ֤ק וָאֵ֙פֶר֙ יַצִּ֔יעַ הֲלָזֶה֙ תִּקְרָא־צ֔וֹם וְי֥וֹם רָצ֖וֹן לַיהוָֽה׃
Is such the fast I desire? A day for men to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a sad reed in a doormat. And lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, A day when the LORD is favorable?
You see, this isn’t the fast of Tisha B’Av. The fast 3 months ago where we mourn the loss of our Temples, home, Judaism as we knew it. The day where we shudder at all the curses that befell us on that day in history. Grieving for a past we cannot change, facing the ruins of the city from a place of exile. We read the words of Jeremiah’s Lamentations, and bow our head like a cattail after a storm.
While Tisha B’av began after the destruction of the Temple, The rabbis retrofit it into the Torah. Tisha B’Av is now the cursed day on which the Israelites refuse to move toward the promised land after hearing the fearful report of giants. It’s the day on which God decrees that this generation will die out in the wilderness. After that decree, every Erev Tisha B’Av in the wilderness, the Israelites, wherever they were, would literally stop and dig their own graves. They then went to sleep for the night, each in her own self-dug grave. In the morning, the alarm was sounded, and they would get up, and count who remained alive, and who had died.
They dug their own graves, slept in them, and waited.
Such is not Yom Kippur. It is not a fast day to dig a hole and hide, and passively accept whatever comes. It is not a fatalist’s holy day.
הֲל֣וֹא זֶה֮ צ֣וֹם אֶבְחָרֵהוּ֒ פַּתֵּ֙חַ֙ חַרְצֻבּ֣וֹת רֶ֔שַׁע הַתֵּ֖ר אֲגֻדּ֣וֹת מוֹטָ֑ה וְשַׁלַּ֤ח רְצוּצִים֙ חָפְשִׁ֔ים וְכָל־מוֹטָ֖ה תְּנַתֵּֽקוּ׃
No, says Isaiah. this is the fast I desire: Unlock fetters of wickedness, Untie the cords of the yoke. Break Free the shackles of the oppressed; break off every yoke.
Listen to his language--“פתח, unlock, התר, untie, שלח, set free. , This is the message and the movement of Yom Kippur. And yes, this Yom Kippur we have lost so many souls in the past year, and we are in mourning too. We cannot forget this.
But we must not confuse Yom Kippur with Tisha B’Av. It is not time to dig graves and lie in them and see what happens. It is not the time to say, this is too big for us--there are giant forces out there, and we have no power. Yes, we are in the wilderness. And there are giant forces. But this is Isaiah’s day, not Jeremiah’s. This is not the day to sing lamentations. It is ‘pateach, hater, shalach’. Open, untie, and break free.
to break the cords of evil around us and the cords of indifference and denial within us. The cords are heavy, and they are tightening. We are afraid. ‘Pateah, hater, shalach.’ Unbind, unlock, set free.
My family members have been asking me the same question--more urgently every week: Have you renewed your Canadian passport? And they are right, and I should. But I’ll be darned if when I look back in a year’s time, in 5 years time, and people ask: what did you do in this time of uncertainty and unrest. What did you do to unlock, untie, and break free, I’ll be darned if all I could say is: I renewed my Canadian passport. I laid down and went to sleep, and waited to see what and who would be there in the morning.
Unlock, unbind, break free. Action words. And the actions look different for each of us--depending on our vocation, our strength, our access to power. Pithi, hitri, shilchi. Isaiah continues: It is to share your bread with the hungry; this is the fast I desire. And to take the wretched poor into your home; this is the fast I desire. When you see the naked, to clothe him, And not to ignore your own kin; this is the fast...
This fast demands much from us. We have the strength and capacity to show up.
אָ֣ז יִבָּקַ֤ע כַּשַּׁ֙חַר֙ אוֹרֶ֔ךָ וַאֲרֻכָתְךָ֖ מְהֵרָ֣ה תִצְמָ֑ח וְהָלַ֤ךְ לְפָנֶ֙יךָ֙ צִדְקֶ֔ךָ כְּב֥וֹד יְהוָ֖ה יַאַסְפֶֽךָ׃
Then shall your light burst through like the dawn And your healing spring up quickly;
אָ֤ז תִּקְרָא֙ וַיהוָ֣ה יַעֲנֶ֔ה תְּשַׁוַּ֖ע וְיֹאמַ֣ר הִנֵּ֑נִי
Then, when you call out, God will say: Hineini.
...וְקֹרָ֤א לְךָ֙ גֹּדֵ֣ר פֶּ֔רֶץ מְשֹׁבֵ֥ב נְתִיב֖וֹת לָשָֽׁבֶת׃
You shall be called “Those who mend torn places,”
You shall be called “Those who build lanes to live in.”
No one likes a prophet. You think you’re doing your job--coming to shul, fasting. You think you’ve done something hard. And here comes Isaiah with the message that it is not enough. We all have serious work (holy and hard) to do, and we’re all on the hook.
It is Yom Kippur 5781, and we face a terrifying unknown. Turmoil is a given. Chaos. Wilderness. How will we respond? Will we default to Tisha B’Av? Will we grieve what hasn’t yet been lost? Or will we show up with the urgency of neila? Will we use our voice to call out grave injustices, our whole being to unlock, untie, and break free, and all of our strength to roll the relentless stumbling blocks out of our path?
